


A Mother's Love

by FalconLux



Series: W.I.P. Collection [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Expanded Magical World, Lily's Crazy, M/M, Manipulative Dumbledore, Non-Malicious Child Abuse, Paranoid Lily, Powerful Harry, Romance, Tags May Change, WIP, unfinished work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-05-17 11:14:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5867197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FalconLux/pseuds/FalconLux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Voldemort comes for Harry, Lily goes just a bit insane.  After discovering exactly how far she will go to protect her son, she will never be the same. How will Harry handle growing up with a mum that makes Alastor Moody seem well-balanced and rational?</p>
<p>WARNING: This story may never be finished or even continued. Read at your own risk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm new to AO3, so there may be formatting issues. If so, I apologize.
> 
> The Series will be a collection of unrelated, unfinished works that I will update as I make progress, but that progress will be slow/sporadic and they may never be finished.

* * *

 

****Lily****

 

“Oh fuck!  Lily, it’s him!  Run!  Take Harry and run!”

I didn’t stop to think.  I couldn’t.  My brain had stopped functioning properly at “it’s him”.  Panic lodged itself into my soul and claimed possession of my body.  I was shaking and unsteady, but it didn’t slow me as I clutched my son to my chest and sprinted up the stairs toward the emergency portkey hidden in Harry’s room.

I knew.  I knew that James was going to die buying us time to escape.  I knew it, and I couldn’t even care.  In that moment, only one thing in the entire world mattered to me.  Harry.  I had to get Harry to safety.  Once he was safe, nothing else would matter.

How had it come to this? My mind cried out in furious desperation.  How had this happened?  We were supposed to be safe!

My wand.  I didn’t have my wand.  I’d left it downstairs!  How had I left my wand downstairs?!

Why weren’t my legs moving faster? 

Why didn’t I have my wand?

No.  It didn’t matter.  Get to the portkey.  Get away.

There was an explosion downstairs, and I knew.  I knew that _he_ was inside.  I could hear voices.  A quiet murmur met James’ voice raised in desperation and anger.

Harry was crying, whether from the noise of the explosion, the sound of James’ raised voice, or the panic radiating through me, I didn’t know.

“It’s okay, Harry.  It’ll be okay.  We’re going to get out of here.  Mummy’s got you.  Mummy will protect you.  It’s okay…” I heard myself rambling as I finally – _finally_ – reached Harry’s room.  I slammed the door behind me and lunged for the…

It wasn’t there.

For one eternal instant, my mind ceased to function in complete, impotent shock.  It was gone.  _How_ could it be gone?!  The snitch-shaped bookend was missing.

The portkey was gone.

I didn’t have my wand.

We were trapped.

I was helpless.

My eyes turned down to the boy in my arms.  My son.  I couldn’t breathe.  We were going to die.  We were both going to die.

“ _Avada Kedavra_.”

The words weren’t spoken loudly, yet they seemed to cause the entire world to tremble beneath me – around me.  As if in slow motion, I turned to look at the door.  Footsteps – unhurried – climbed the stairs.  Closer.

Closer.

I spun away from the door, searching – frantic.  The portkey had to be here.  It _had_ to be!  It had not been moved since Albus had cast the charm upon it.  No one even knew about it!  No one…

Except for Sirius and Peter.

Peter, who had been made our Secret Keeper only a week before Voldemort found us.

Peter had betrayed us.  He’d led Voldemort here.  He’d taken the portkey.

Peter…

I cringed instinctively as the door behind me was blasted open.  I dropped Harry into his crib and spun to face the demon that had haunted my nightmares for years.  I spread my arms, made myself as much of a shield as I could, between Harry and the man who would kill us.

“Please!  Please, no!  Have mercy!” I begged desperately, knowing that it was pointless.  This creature had no mercy.  No pity.  No sympathy.  I couldn’t talk my way out of this, but what else could I do?  I wouldn’t give up.  I couldn’t.

“Stand aside, girl!” he snapped impatiently.  “Stand aside, and you needn’t die.”

I barely comprehended his words.  Stand aside and let him kill my son?  As though I cared anything for my own life?  As though I would _want_ to live to see Harry dead?  I would do anything to protect my son, but if I failed, I would want for nothing but to join him on the other side.  “Please!” I begged helplessly.  “Please!  Take me instead!  Not Harry!  _Not Harry_!”

“Stand aside, girl!  I will not tell you again!”

I shook my head.  I couldn’t.  Of course, I couldn’t.  How could he not understand that?  How could he possibly think that I would let him kill my son?

“Very well,” he said, sounding nothing more than exasperated.  He lifted his wand slightly.

Time slowed to nearly a stop.  The panic that had been clawing at my mind and soul since I’d realized he was at our house suddenly and drastically transformed from a terrified animal trying to flee into a feral beast that would not go down without a fight.  I didn’t care if I died, and if Harry died, then I would be with him, but I refused to relent while there remained a breath left in me – not while there was the smallest chance that resistance might save my son.

Time resumed its normal pace.  The demon was halfway through his incantation of the same curse that had killed my husband.  My vision grayed out around the edges.  The extent of my mental facilities were reduced to the wand in his hand and the very few options I retained to preserve the life of my only child.

With a screech barely human, I launched myself bodily at the beast that threatened my son.  I shoved his wand aside and the green light – the aching cold – of death flew wide.  I heard a window shatter but ignored it.  Red eyes widened.  Harry was screaming now, but I couldn’t attend to him yet.  I had to push forward.  I knew that if I allowed the smallest respite, we would both die.

My entire being focused upon his weapon.  His wand.

I landed hard on top of the monster, my legs straddling him as I wrenched my body to put both hands around his.  I lifted his hand and then bashed it into the floor with all my strength and the weight of my body.  I felt bones break, but honestly didn’t know if they were mine or his or both.

His other hand grabbed my hair, tried to yank me off.  I just screamed louder and fought harder.  Then he rolled.  He was on top of me, but only for a moment, and then I was on top of him again, but we were closer to Harry, which only pushed my desperation to greater heights.  I was screaming, but I didn’t think there were any words in it.  I didn’t know what happened to his wand while we were rolling, but I didn’t see it now.  I didn’t have time to look for it.  My hands closed around his hairless head and I lifted, then slammed it back down. 

Over and over and over again, my legs locked around him to keep him from shoving me off.  My hands slipped and I fell on top of him.  I wrenched myself up again, and my hands closed around his throat and I squeezed with all my strength and leaned into it with all my weight.  He wasn’t fighting me anymore.  I was winning!  It seemed impossible.  I was at once overwhelmed with a fierce joy and a suffocating terror that I was mistaken.  I knew that I wasn’t thinking clearly.  I wasn’t even _seeing_ clearly.  I couldn’t let up until he was well and truly dead.  I couldn’t lose now.  Not when I was so close.

I leaned back yanking his upper body off the floor, then slammed it back down again and again and again.

I don’t know how long it was before I began to realize that he’d ceased to fight completely.  I held on longer, fearful of a trick.

My vision slowly began to clear.  My mind began to make sense again.

I looked down into the face of my nightmares and I saw red.  Literally, his white face had turned red.

It took a long time for me to understand that it was blood.  His face was bathed in blood.  His red eyes were dim.  Lifeless.  His throat was misshapen.  His _head_ was misshapen, flattened at the back and bowing some at the sides.  The blood was… everywhere.

Another endless moment passed as I very slowly began to comprehend that Voldemort was _dead_.

Dead.

I had killed him.

He was… very, very dead.

I was alive.

And that sound.  That wonderful sound.  Harry was still crying.  He was still alive.  I looked over my shoulder and my eyes overflowed with tears of blissful relief.

Harry was alive.

 

* * *

****Severus****

 

My heart stopped when I apparated outside Lily’s house to see the front door blown in.  The sound of a baby crying somewhere in the house gave me hope and I sprinted inside, barely noting the body of James Potter just inside.  Not daring to imagine that…  No.  She _had_ to be alive!

“Lily,” I gasped, but could give no volume to it.  I turned toward the sound of the crying.  Up the stairs.  I verily flew up the steps, straight down the hall, slid to a stop at the door at the end.

The first thing that I saw was blood and I couldn’t breathe, but then there was movement and my eyes snapped up to focus on…

Lily.  Covered in blood, the crying baby clutched in one arm, her other pointing a wand at me.  But she was standing.  She was breathing.  She was alive.

My knees hit the floor, my relief so great that I could no longer even stand.

She was staring at me, her eyes obscenely green in a face covered with blood.  The wand in her hand trembled, but was steady enough to kill me if she chose, I didn’t doubt.

“Lily,” I breathed again.

Her eyes darted down very quickly, to the side.

I followed her gaze and realized that there was a corpse on the floor.  A terribly bloodied corpse in a pool of crimson.  A corpse… a…

I stared, unable to comprehend what was seeing.  It was…  It _couldn’t_ be.  It…

Gods…  It _was_ …

The Dark Lord.  Dead.  He looked so… mundane in death.  Just like any other corpse.

My eyes returned to Lily, then the corpse, then back to Lily.  She’d killed the Dark Lord.

“Severus,” she whispered, her voice devoid of life.  “What are you doing here?”

“I…”  I looked at the corpse again.  Then back at her.  “I… just found out…  I came to…”  I shook my head.  I honestly had no idea what I’d thought I might accomplish by coming here.  I hadn’t really thought much at all.  I’d just found out that _he_ was coming and I’d had to…  Most of me hadn’t really expected to find her alive.

Her wand lowered slowly and I finally recognized it.  It was a wand that I had seen far too many times.  A wand I had seen employed for terrible, terrible deeds.  The Dark Lord’s own wand.

“Go downstairs,” she said in that same quiet, lifeless voice.

I didn’t even hesitate – didn’t think for an instant to question her.  I got up.  Walked backward as she moved forward.  I couldn’t take my eyes off her.  I was terrified that if I did, I’d realize that this was all a desperate hallucination.  That she wasn’t really here.  Really alive.

I stumbled a bit down the stairs, moving backward and looking up as I was.  Her eyes didn’t leave me either, though I didn’t think that her reason was the same as mine.

Then we were in the front room.  Her eyes moved passed me, landed on Potter.  Stuck there for a long moment.  She didn’t break down into hysterics at the sight of her dead husband.  A few tears slipped from her eyes, painting macabre streaks through the blood on her face.  Her arm tightened around the small boy in her arm.  He was beginning to quiet at last, though I’d hardly noticed his crying after locating Lily.

She stepped around me warily, then bent and picked up a familiar willow wand from the sofa table.  She looked at Potter again for a long moment, then at me again.  She clutched Harry to her tightly, then lifted her hand, now holding both wands, and spun.

With a quiet crack, Lily vanished.

 

* * *

****Albus****

 

I felt very, very old, torn between aching grief and overwhelming relief.  James was dead.  Peter was a traitor.  Lily had not stopped touching Harry in the two days since it had happened, her eyes either dull and lifeless or fevered and feral if anyone so much as approached Harry without her express permission or dared to suggest taking the boy from her.  She’d not consented to take anything to help her sleep, though Poppy had said that she woke every few minutes when she _did_ sleep to check on Harry.

Sirius had been arrested chasing after Peter and would have been sent straight to Azkaban if I hadn’t made haste to defend him.  He was still awaiting trial.  Severus had refused to leave the infirmary since his arrival right after Lily.  He spent most of his time staring at her as if afraid that she was an illusion, but she barely seemed aware of him as long as he kept his distance.

Little Harry had not escaped that night unscathed, however.  From what I had thus far pieced together between Lily’s fractured testimony and Poppy’s diagnostics – Lily hadn’t let anyone but Poppy come near yet – I could only conclude that the single Killing Curse that Tom had managed to loose in that room had, in fact, hit Harry in the forehead.  Yet the child lived.

I wished so badly that Tom was truly dead as his body suggested, but I knew better.  Lily had defeated him that night, but only Harry could kill him.  I was sure now, that he was the one.  That mark upon his brow proved it.

The boy was going to have to be handled very carefully in the years to come.  Equal to Tom’s power…  I would have to watch him very closely.  Should he turn Dark, I knew that the world would not survive.  The poor child… so young to be so burdened. 

Tom would be back, though I desperately hoped that it would not be for many years.  I hoped that little Harry would have a chance to grow up, to properly train, before he had to face the man who had killed his father.

I could only hope that Lily would recover soon or the boy might have to be placed with someone else.

Lily looked up at me, her hand not pausing as it carded softly through her son’s wild hair.  Her green eyes were fever bright again as they stared into mine.

I restrained a shudder.  I desperately hoped that she recovered soon.

 

* * *

  ****Lily****

 

Albus. 

Albus and his prophecy. 

Albus and his plans. 

Albus and his “foolproof” protection.

I internally scoffed.  No, it was not his fault that we’d trusted the wrong man.  It _was_ his fault that we were still in Britain at all.  When I’d heard the prophecy, I’d pleaded with James to just take Harry and run far away from Voldemort and all of the dangers of the war.  I believed in fighting him as much as anyone, but not at the risk of our son’s life.  Nothing was worth that, and Voldemort had had every reason to target him specifically.

_Trust in Albus_ , James had said so many times.  _Trust in Albus_ , like he’d trusted in his friends.  And now he was dead, and Harry had nearly gone with him.

Albus was always planning something.  Always plotting something.  Even now.  I’d seen the way he’d been watching Harry.  The way his eyes had lingered on my son’s new scar.  A mark.  A mark from Voldemort.  I could practically hear it reverberating in his thoughts.

My eyes turned back to Harry, sleeping peacefully at my side on the hospital bed.  I ran my hand continuously through his soft, silky hair.  I relished every rise and fall of his chest.  Every beat of his heart.  Every cry.  Every smile, every blink.  My son was alive.

He was going to stay that way.  Albus and his infernal war could go hang for all I cared.  I would never risk my son again.  I would protect him, and when he was ready, I would train him to protect himself.  He would be strong – far stronger than his father.  Stronger than me.  Stronger than Albus or Voldemort, or anyone else who could ever seek to do him harm. 

Until he was ready, I would have to be strong for him.  I needed to be stronger than I was.  Never again could I be caught so unprepared.  Never again would I be without my wand.  My eyes trailed down to the bed between Harry and I, where two wands rested next to my stomach.  My wand and Voldemort’s.  Albus had tried to take the latter, but I’d refused.  It was mine.  Rightfully won.  It didn’t respond to me nearly as strongly as my own, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to keep it.  I couldn’t let it go, because if I did, it might someday be used against me again.  Against Harry.  I couldn’t allow that.

This wand would stay with me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And THAT is my idea of Voldemort being killed by a mother's love.
> 
> There will be time skips as we go. This is not intended to be an epic-length work.


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

 

****31 December 1981 – Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA****

 

Lily exhaled in a heavy sigh as she dropped herself onto the rather uncomfortable bed in the diminutive hotel room she’d let for the night.  Two months.  Today marked two months since James had died.  Two months since Lily had become a widow and brutally killed the feared Dark Lord with nothing more than her bare hands and adrenaline.  Two months since Harry had survived what should have killed him.  She was so very grateful for that.  She couldn’t imagine what she’d have done if Harry had been killed because she’d pushed Voldemort’s wand away from herself.  She’d have most likely either killed herself or become a permanent resident of the Janus Thickey ward.

But that hadn’t happened.  They’d both survived.  Dumbledore…  She growled quietly just thinking about the man.  Those looks she’d noticed in the first days had not ceased.  If anything they had grown more calculating over that week.  And then she’d read in the Daily Prophet that she and her son had defeated Voldemort, with Harry surviving the impossible in the process.  Dumbledore hadn’t asked her opinion of telling her story to the press before he’d done it.  He’d not even looked properly penitent when she had screamed at him about it.  He believed that he’d done the right thing.  And she understood properly now that Dumbledore _always_ did the right thing.  The only problem was that _he_ defined what was right and what was wrong, which meant that if he could convince himself that it was “right” to murder Harry in his sleep or to take him away from Lily, that is exactly what he would do.

No, he couldn’t be trusted.  Really, she didn’t think she’d ever been right to trust him, but she’d come from the muggle world.  She’d only had certain biased opinions of the man in the beginning and he’d seemed like an incredible wizard.  She’d been stupid.  At eleven, that kind of naivety could be excused.  At twenty, as a mother, it had been irresponsible – at _best_ – to put such blind faith in anyone to protect her child.  She could trust no one, so she would do it herself, and she would teach him how to do it.

So she’d left.  She’d not asked permission or even informed anyone.  She’d known that Dumbledore would never allow it.  He’d made them both into icons – something he’d had _no right_ to do – and he would not give up his shiny new morale boosters.  She knew this.  So she’d left, snuck away like a thief, in the dead of night.

What had followed had been a rather insane race to maintain their freedom against one of the most powerful wizards alive.  Fortunately, Lily was a charms prodigy, and she’d have been top of her class in potions as well if not for Severus, who was a freaking savant.  Armed with a battery of spells to mask her and Harry’s magical signatures, an array of glamors to hide their now _very well known_ – thanks to Albus – notable features, and a series of potions that temporarily altered their physical bodies just enough that no material forms of magical tracking, such as through hair or blood, would be possible, she’d led a merry chase through Europe.  She’d stopped first at Gringotts.  Thankfully, James’ will had been simple and left everything to her.  It wasn’t possible to liquefy all of the Potter assets in the time she had and with the discretion that was so vital, but she had emptied the vault of all gold, platinum, and gems, which was now stored in an expanded trunk and kept on a necklace that she never took off.  She’d converted as much as possible into muggle money of several different currencies – only about a quarter of a million galleons’ worth.

Through a combination of muggle transportation, apparition jumps, and illegal portkeys that Albus had been kind enough to teach her to make near the end of her seventh year, Lily had crossed several countries, making short stops in the wizarding world to collect books and supplies they would need.  Along the way, she’d constantly improved their magical and physical disguises even as she altered them at least once per city – which was sometimes several times a day.  When they stopped, it was always in a muggle area, sometimes a high end place, others a bare roof over their heads.

Lily was very intelligent.  She had always been.  In the muggle world, they’d called her a prodigy – even a genius.  The wizarding world didn’t seem as keen to assign such labels, though they had called her brilliant often enough.  She wished that she’d devoted more of that intellect to common sense sooner, but she didn’t let herself dwell on the past except to learn from her mistakes.  The future was all that mattered now.  They had to survive, and – she was convinced – they would have to avoid Dumbledore if they hoped to live very long.

Now, after an incredibly hectic two months, Lily finally felt confident enough in their concealment to stop and breathe.  She figured that they’d stay here a few days.  She needed to plan the next step.  Thus far, all future plans had revolved around staying anonymous, far from Albus Dumbledore, and alive.  Obviously, they would need to be a little more detailed than that now that she was fairly certain that they were well enough concealed to have the time for anything except running.

She needed to work on training herself.  She needed to be in better shape physically.  She’d killed Voldemort with her bare hands, after all.  It had never been more blindingly obvious to her that even the strongest wizard had a severe weakness if he didn’t practice physical defense.  She could not afford to be weak.  Harry couldn’t afford for her to be weak.  So she wouldn’t be.  The simplest thing to do was simply to build her strength and endurance, but she wanted to learn martial arts as well.  She couldn’t help but think that killing Voldemort would have been almost easy if she’d been skilled in hand to hand combat.

She’d already cropped her hair at about three centimeters – or around an inch, as they said in the States.  She needed to work on her accents as well.  She knew several languages, but it would not do her well to be instantly picked out as British the moment she opened her mouth.  Yes, she’d cut her hair, which she’d _always_ worn long before.  Voldemort hadn’t managed to yank her away from him when he’d grabbed it during their fight, but it had been a near thing.  She’d realized that it was a liability in a fight, and it might get in her eyes at a crucial moment.  No, it was certainly best to have short hair.

Of course, a woman with very short hair tended to stand out in people’s minds as well.  That was why she’d used a complex charm she’d found to weave the hair she’d cut off into a wig.  It wasn’t as long as it had been before, of course, but it was long enough that no one would give it a second thought.  She changed the color and style frequently, but generally chose muted, boring colors to attract less attention. 

Harry’s hair had been cut very short so that no one would recognize the resemblance that the terminally messy mop had to the Potters.  His scar was kept constantly under a glamor, which had not been easy.  It had been very resistant to every charm she’d tried to cast on it.  She’d eventually managed to tie the charm into a piece of jewelry that the scar couldn’t fight against.  It was a simple platinum stud she’d pierced into the shell of his left ear.  It was the only jewelry she’d been able to think of that she wouldn’t have to worry being dislodged from such a young child.  A sticking charm would have sufficed, of course, but even the gentlest wasn’t ideal for use on skin for an extended period of time.  They tended to get very uncomfortable and eventually leave a rash.  The glamor also changed his eye color to dark brown to match her own glamored eyes.

There was so much that she needed to do.  They couldn’t risk sitting still too long, but they needed to be training.  In addition to improving herself physically and learning martial arts – for which she supposed they’d have to sit still for a little while in order for her to receive proper instruction – she was going to improve her knowledge of charms and learn every other manner of magic that she could find.  Harry had to start learning as well.  He was nearly a year and a half old.  Not old enough to begin serious training, of course, but plenty old enough to begin learning.  She had begun reading when she was three without any instruction, and she suspected that Harry took more after her intellect than James’.  She hoped to have him fairly fluent in reading English by the time he was three, and she had already started teaching him French by alternating the language she used with him every other day.  She’d teach him Latin next, and then Italian.  After that, they’d have to learn together because those were the only languages in which she was presently fluent.

She rolled out of bed and removed her necklace in order to enlarge the second of the two trunks that hung there.  She needed to find a better method for storing their possessions as well, she noted while she rifled through the contents for a book to read while Harry napped.  She found a notebook and pen as well, to record any notes that came to mind.  Lily was something of a savant at charms, much like Severus was with potions.  She did need to find a better way to store their things.  Anything that she could find in a book would be too predictable to any magical person that might search them, after all.  No, she just needed to study enough theory to create her own spells.  She opened her notebook and quickly wrote that down along with the other things they needed to do.  She’d organize it by priority later when she had a more comprehensive list.

So much to do.  And no time to waste.

* * *

 

****31 July 1982 – Topeka, Kansas, USA****

 

Lily smiled tightly as she watched Harry constructing some form of rudimentary settlement in the sandbox at the playground.  She’d decided to give him the day off from training in honor of his second birthday.  Thus far, they’d had pancakes with chocolate chips for breakfast, gone swimming, had ice cream, a nap, a healthy lunch to make up for breakfast, and now they were at a public playground. 

She loved to watch Harry having fun, but she’d spent the entire day fighting an instinctive urge to be doing _something_.  This lack of constructive activity was maddening after nine months of constant work.  She couldn’t stop thinking about all of the ways they were still in danger and everything they needed to do in order to mitigate those dangers as much as possible.  This doing nothing felt criminal.

A sudden surge of magic caused her to flinch and snap her eyes back to Harry even while her wand shot into her hand from the invisible sheath on her right wrist.  It took her only a moment to realize that they weren’t in danger.  She released her wand and it snapped back into the sheath even while she stared at the tiny city that her son was presently clapping at gleefully.  It wasn’t extremely detailed, and it looked to be a ragged conglomeration of buildings that vaguely resembled various ones they’d seen in cities they’d visited in the last six months or so.  Still, it was _incredibly_ impressive for a simple bout of accidental magic from a barely two-year-old.

She’d been three the first time she’d done accidental magic from what her parents had told her.  She’d been right.  Harry was going to be incredibly powerful.  Just like that ruddy prophecy said he would.  Well, she wouldn’t complain in this instance.  More power meant he’d be better able to defend himself in the future.  And the accidental magic meant that she needed to start thinking of ways to train his magic.  Of course he wouldn’t be ready for real spells for several more years, but if he could do accidental magic, then he was ready to start doing some of the simplest forms of magic that she’d read about.  Preschool magical education had gone out of fashion in most of the wizarding world over the last five or so centuries, but it _had_ existed. 

Based on the theory she’d read, it was actually an excellent way to begin training and strengthening magic from a very early age.  It had only gone out of practice because it could be dangerous to teach very small children to consciously harness magic as it often got out of hand and could sometimes be fatal to the child or others.  She wasn’t worried about that.  Harry was powerful and brilliant and she was very diligent.  She would ensure that no harm came to him.

Still, that little city was a bit conspicuous if any muggles were to look at them very closely.  She quickly drew her new camera from her bag and snapped a couple pictures of the boy and his first accidental magic.  She developed her own photographs, of course.  She had no interest in boring still photos that she’d get if muggles developed them and she didn’t dare let anyone in the wizarding world see any pictures of them as would inevitably happen if she took them to any of the apothecaries that generally offered the service.  Once they were done, they’d go into her album in the trunk.  It was a little bit of permanency in a nomadic life that helped to keep her sane.  Well… it helped to prevent her from losing her sanity any more than she already had.  She knew perfectly well that she was, at best, dangerously paranoid since last Halloween, but she didn’t care.  Better paranoid and alive than complacent and dead – like James.

Once the photos were taken, she stowed the camera once more, shouldered her bag, and then scooped up her son.  She ignored his indignant cries when she used her foot to destroy his little city.  They couldn’t leave it there where someone might discover it.  Really, if someone knew what they were looking at, they could track their movements based on the buildings her son had created with his magic.  She was going to have to start incorporating lessons on discretion and deception into his training.  She knew that he was a little young for it, but it wouldn’t be a bad idea to start laying some foundations in prudence.

Their next and final stop for the day was the zoo.  It took them over an hour to cross a distance that would have taken barely twenty minutes in a taxi because they took two busses and a taxi and then walked a few blocks to reach it.  She was virtually certain that no one who might be looking for them had the slightest idea that they might be in Topeka, and she didn’t _think_ that Harry’s accidental magic had drawn any attention, but she didn’t take chances.  She could always be wrong about them being followed, after all.  The most efficient way for her to identify a stalker would be to move in the most improbable and inefficient of ways.  Then anyone who appeared more than once would stand out very strongly.

As an added precaution, she stopped at a public restroom and changed both of their hair color from dark brown to dirty blonde between the taxi and the second bus.  She also changed the color of their clothing with a few simple charms. 

Harry had a wonderful time at the zoo and thought no more about his sand city.  He growled at the lions in a way that made her smile fondly and think of better days when life had revolved around Hogwarts, classes, and Severus.  It seemed another lifetime.  Harry continued to demonstrate his mastery at the art of imitation by making ape noises at the apes, goat noises at the goats, and so forth.  That was endearing and unconcerning until they came to the reptile house.  His hisses at the snakes were most certainly not mere imitations.

She could only stare at her son in disbelief – and cast a surreptitious distraction ward around them – as she watched her son have a conversation with a snake.  And the snake was very clearly responding.

Harry was a parselmouth.

She racked her brain, but she couldn’t ever remember James mentioning anything about such a trait having ever been in his family.  Not that it was really _done_ to speak of such things among such vehemently _Light_ families.

To her knowledge, Harry could be the only parselmouth in the world – not counting Voldemort who Albus seemed convinced would return despite her very clear memory of killing the bastard.  So she had to wonder if Harry’s talent had anything to do with Voldemort or that curse scar on his forehead or if it was merely a coincidence.  Maybe she was descended from an old squib line that carried a recessive gene that had met up with a recessive gene in the Potter line.  It was possible.

She needed to find out if it was probable though.  That meant she was going to need to access the Potter vault at Gringotts in London.  She’d taken money and books from the vault before they’d left, but she’d not taken any of the books personal to the Potter line.  She hadn’t thought, at the time, that they would be needed any time soon.  Now, she needed them.  She needed to learn everything that she could about the parselmouth gift and all that it entailed.  She also wanted to know how likely it was that Harry had actually gotten the gift from Voldemort.  If he had, it was possible that he’d gotten other things as well – and some may not be as apparently harmless as the instinctive grasp of a magical language.

With a sigh, she dispelled the ward and scooped up her son.  He started to fuss, but she quieted him quickly as they left the zoo.  The nearest Gringotts branch was in Chicago.  That was single-jump apparition distance from here – for her, anyway.  Not that she would _ever_ travel anywhere by single-jump apparition.  Far too easy to track.  From there, the goblins should be able to arrange a secure portkey to Gringotts London so that she could visit the Potter vault without alerting anyone to her presence there.  She may have emptied the vault of wealth, but that was nine months ago.  She couldn’t receive owls, but she did stop in to various Gringotts branches to check her account activity every month or so.  There were still plenty of Potter family assets feeding money into the vault, and she made a point to keep those assets carefully managed.  That income was providing a very important asset to her, after all.  Namely, it was paying bribes to the goblins and various other important people to increase her and Harry’s security. 

She knew that the goblins would be very accommodating.  They always were.

* * *

 

****23 November 1982 – Unnamed Island somewhere in the Bay of Bengal****

 

“Mistress?”

“Yes,” Lily said, rising from her chair and hefting Harry more securely on her left hip while she kept her right free to summon her wand if necessary.

The small bald man gave a polite smile in return.  “The Director will see you now,” he informed her.

She resisted the urge to sigh with relief as she followed him down a narrow corridor and up a narrow flight of stairs to a door labeled in a language that she’d need a translation spell to read.  The charm she was utilizing now only functioned on verbal language, not written.  Her guide knocked once and opened the door to reveal an office that looked more like a miniature library with a desk.

“Thank you,” she said politely as she stepped inside.  She’d been working to arrange this meeting for over a month and the two months before that had been spent searching to even find the contact information for this library’s director.  The two weeks before that had been spent figuring out that this library even existed.  It was a very well-kept secret if you didn’t happen to know someone who knew someone whose family had been connected to the library for the last few centuries, etc.  She just hoped that it was as complete and unbiased as its reputation suggested.  The knowledge available here was supposed to be completely uncensored.  The lightest of the light and the darkest of the dark without exception.  No legal restriction or biased purge in the world had touched the collection in this library since the time of Atlantis, when much of that library had been salvaged and brought here.  Or so she’d heard.

“Hello, mistress,” the man behind the desk greeted without looking up from where he was writing something in a book.  He wasn’t using a quill, she noticed, but neither was it a muggle pen.  It actually looked something like a thick pencil carved of perhaps stone.  Whatever it was, it seemed to emit ink from the pointed end.  “Please, have a seat.  I’m nearly finished…” he said distractedly.

Lily took advantage of his distraction to summon her wand and cast a quick detection charm on the chair, which proved to have a mild comfort charm, a stability charm, and a preservation charm worked into it, but nothing concerning.  She quickly returned her wand to her sheath and sat down with Harry in her lap.  The director had yet to lift his gaze, so she examined him while she waited.

He very clearly had some creature blood, she noticed.  That was one thing she’d found fascinating about much of Southeast Asia that she’d seen in the last couple of months.  Unlike much of Europe and the States, having obvious creature blood didn’t seem to be something to make one publically shunned.  In fact, certain creature types seemed to be quite popular in certain professions.  Those with dwarf blood seemed to be very popular as smiths, for instance.  She had no idea what sort of creature the director had in his blood, but whatever it was, it gave him bluish-green skin and ears both pointed and canted back.  His nails were thick and pointed, as though they were some cross between fingernails and claws.  His hair was coarse and black, and consisted of little more than a broad strip down the center of his head, which was grown long and braided back.  He was wearing a gray-green robe that suited his skin color nicely.

After just a few seconds more, he looked up from the book and placed the writing implement aside.  “There now,” he said with a smile did not display his teeth.  “Before we begin, I’ll need you to sign this,” he slid a page of parchment across the desk, though he didn’t add anything to write with.  “Just a single drop of blood from each of you, will suffice.  No names are necessary.  Please, feel free to examine the parchment in any way you wish,” he added politely.

She nodded as she turned her attention to the parchment.  It was a privacy contract, as she’d been informed she would be required to sign before coming here.  In fact, she wouldn’t be allowed to leave until it was signed.  There was nothing suspicious about it that she could see, nothing dangerous hidden in the phrasing.  It was even written in English. 

She drew her wand again and cast detection charms over it to determine exactly how it would hold her to the contract, and to ensure that it wouldn’t do anything else.  She was very impressed by what she found.  She didn’t recognize all of it, but she was able to understand enough to be convinced that it wasn’t dangerous.  The magic would prevent her from saying anything even by accident.  The only danger to herself would come if she managed to find a way to try to work around the restrictions that prevented her from speaking.  Should she do that, it could steal her magic, or even kill her.

After a solid ten minutes of casting charms on it, she felt secure enough to put Harry’s blood on it, but only after she’d put her own and not experienced anything unexpected.

“Very good,” the director smiled when she was finished.  He didn’t appear to be in any way bothered by the evidence of her paranoia or the time it had taken her to “sign” the contract.  He slid toward her two pale wooden boxes about the size of a ring box.  He flipped open the lid on one to reveal a small white object like a very small coin or a very thin watch battery.  “This is a key,” he explained.  “It functions as a portkey that will take you into the member entrance of the library and return you back to your last location when you are ready to leave.  Each key will admit only one person.  They become bonded to you once they touch your blood and will never work for anyone else.  You will also find that only you will be able to activate them.  As your child is so young, your key will be connected to his so that you can activate them both, but to do so will require you to physically touch him.  You may feel free to examine the keys in any way that you wish.  When you are ready, the keys will be inserted under your skin via a painless spell.  Once they are in place, they cannot be removed except by physically cutting out the surrounding flesh or with a specific counterspell that is not known outside this office.”

“Wait,” Lily frowned warily.  “I was under the impression that this meeting was some kind of interview to determine if I could get a key.  You haven’t asked me anything, yet you’re willing to admit us?”

The director looked vaguely amused, “An interview is sometimes necessary,” he agreed.  “To determine why one wishes to use the library.”

“But it’s not for me,” she prompted.

“For him,” the director corrected, with a nod at her son.  “Our more prestigious members can recommend certain others for a membership.  As you are clearly this boy’s mother, and given his age, I would say that is recommendation enough.”

Lily tightened her hold on Harry protectively.  “What do you mean by that?  What do you know about my son?”  His scar was concealed, as was his hair and eye color.  She couldn’t imagine how the director had learned of his identity.

“I knew nothing of him until you entered this office,” he replied politely.  “Now that he is here, I can feel that his magical core is exceptionally powerful and rather well controlled for his age.  That alone would be enough to pique my interest and likely earn him a membership.  There is also…” his wide, brilliant blue eyes narrowed thoughtfully.  “There is a sense of ancient magic about him… the scent of Death.  I cannot determine any more detail than that, but in addition to the size of his core, it is enough.  The Library has survived a very long time by accommodating those of power and influence – those capable of ensuring its security.  Your son is exactly the sort of member we seek.  As long as he lives, you will both be welcome here so long as he does not act against our interests.”

Lily nodded slowly and gave that a moment of thought before deciding that it made enough sense to be believable.  And given his obvious creature blood, she really couldn’t imagine what sort of magical senses he might have.  Describing Harry as powerful and touched by Death did happen to sound very accurate, after all.

Turning her attention back to the keys, she began casting.  Fifteen minutes later, she was convinced that the keys were safe and could not be activated remotely or otherwise used against her or Harry.  She could not wait to get into that library.  She’d started searching it out as a means of learning more about Harry’s parseltongue ability and anything else he may have garnered from Voldemort that night, but it would be useful for far more than that.  Just thinking of the rare spells that she could learn here…  Her spine tingled with the possibilities.

Her key was placed on her hand, just between her thumb and forefinger, and the director cast a spell she’d never heard but that had the feel of healing and protection magic.  The key seemed to slide right _through_ her skin, and he’d spoken truly in that it didn’t hurt at all.  When he was finished, she could see only the faintest outline through her skin if she looked very closely.  If she had more of a tan, she suspected that it might vanish entirely.

She spent another ten minutes making sure that Harry’s key was as safe as hers, and then stood behind the boy’s shoulder, one hand holding his hand steady while the other held her wand on the director, ready to use should he vary the spell in the slightest from the one he’d used on her.  Again, he seemed to find nothing remarkable about her paranoia.  She could only imagine that he’d dealt with people like her before.

When Harry’s key was in place, he explained briefly how to use the portkeys.  Apparently, it was merely a matter of picturing the library, wishing to be there, and speaking the word, “Library” in any language.  Returning with the portkey was the same, except that the pictured location would be the one from which she left and wishing to be _there_.  The activation word was the same.

“Welcome to the Library,” the Director said at last.  “Feel free to explore at your leisure.  Rai, the initiate who showed you in, can give you a tour and explain the functionality of the Library.”

“Thank you,” Lily said quietly, gathering Harry up again and heading for the door.

“Mumma,” Harry said at last.

“Yes, son?”

“That man was green,” he said conversationally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I should note that I took inspiration for this library and the portkeys embedded in the skin from another fanfic. I have been informed that it was "Out of the Night" by Raining Ink, a very interesting Drarry, which has been abandoned and removed from ffnet. It can still be downloaded from Dropbox if anyone is interested. I just grabbed my own copy after being reminded of the title. Anyway, I loved the subdermal portkey idea and totally borrowed it with gratitude to Raining Ink.
> 
> The next chapter is going to jump ahead to Hogwarts, I think, but more Harry and Lily: The Early Years adventures will be revealed via flashbacks periodically later, or referenced in thoughts and/or dialog. I want to get more of Harry’s thoughts on them, but I hate writing from the POV of very young children, so I’m minimizing how much of that I’ll have to do.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, it's been less than a year. I feel like I should pat myself on the back.

* * *

****1 September 1991 - Hogwarts Express****

I waited until I was closed into an empty compartment, the curtains drawn across the windows before I allowed my triumphant grin to become visible.  I’d done it!  I’d _really_ done it!  I was going to Hogwarts!  I could hardly believe it.

I wondered if mum was freaking out yet and I was a little surprised that she hadn’t changed her mind and come to yank me off the train yet.  I highly suspected that she was hiding out somewhere on the train, but maybe I wasn’t giving her enough credit.  Really, it had been a couple of years now since I’d convinced her to give me a little more space.  And she _had_ agreed to let me go to Hogwarts knowing full well that she would not be able to keep me in sight at all times.

Yes, I should give her more credit.  There was at least a twenty percent chance that she was not, in fact, aboard the train.

The train started moving and I sprawled across one of the benches, almost dizzy with elation.  If Mum hadn’t changed her mind by now, it was unlikely that she would.  I couldn’t believe that I’d really done it.  When I’d first dreamed up the idea of coming to Hogwarts last year, I’d mostly thought it wouldn’t ever actually happen.  I couldn’t imagine Mum actually allowing it.  I’d been determined to give it a good try though, and I had finally managed to convince her after months of negotiations.

I heard footsteps pause outside my compartment door and I palmed my wand, keeping it concealed next to my leg, as the door slid open to permit a boy who looked my age, with red hair and freckles, blue eyes, worn clothes that didn’t fit him very well, and a smudge of dirt along one side of his nose.  _Weasley_ , my mind instantly supplied.  A Light family, far too close to Dumbledore for comfort; given this one’s age, he would be Ronald.

“Do you mind if I sit here?” he gestured to the vacant bench in the compartment.  “Everywhere else is full.”

“Really?” I lifted my brow mildly, “Checked _everywhere,_ did you?”

He blinked and frowned uncertainly.

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.  I’d heard that the Weasleys were smarter than this.  How disappointing.  “I don’t mind.  Sit if you like,” I gestured dismissively, sending my wand back into my wrist sheath when he turned around to close the door. 

I fished a book out of my pocket to read since it seemed unlikely that Weasley would be providing stimulating conversation.  After a solid five minutes of being unabashedly stared at, I glanced up, withholding a sigh.  “Yes?” I asked blandly.

Weasley blinked and blushed as though he hadn’t expected to be caught in his staring, “Uh, I’m Ron.  Ron Weasley.”

Surprise, surprise.

“Hadrian Smith,” I replied simply, using my American accent.  I’d convinced Mum to let me come to Hogwarts.  Obviously, she never would have let me set foot anywhere in Britain whilst wearing my real identity.  Hell, I’d had so many names in my life that I hardly felt any attachment to any of them, including my first.

“Smith?” Weasley asked a few seconds after I’d returned my attention to my book, disrupting me just as I’d begun to read again.  “That’s a pretty big family, right?”

I blinked and turned a look on him that was intended to tell him exactly how stupid I found that question.  The Smith family was one of the largest wizarding families in the world, spread over at least ten countries across four continents.  It was the reason so many of my aliases over the years had included the Smith name.  Even the family themselves had a hard time keeping track of all its members.  Outsiders had no hope of doing so.  They also ranged in wealth and respectability from staunch pureblood devotees to halfbloods married to muggles and from that of the Weasleys all the way up to rivaling the Malfoys.

“Yes,” I said after a moment to be sure he had time to fully understand the look I was giving him.  “I’m a halfblood, from America.  My pureblood father is dead.  I grew up with my muggleborn mother.  We travel a lot, but decided to settle in Britain for now so that I could attend Hogwarts.”

With that bracing edification of my fictional life, I turned my attention back to my book.  It was probably another five minutes of being silently stared at before Weasley spoke again.  “Why didn’t you go to school in America?”

“The Salem Institute is less than three hundred years old,” I answered simply, having expected this question.  “It’s not a bad school, but I was more interested in going somewhere with more history.  Hogwarts was the first public institution for formalized magical instruction in the world.”  At least, it had been the first since Atlantis, but I had no interest in trying to explain how I knew anything about Atlantis without mentioning the Library.

Weasley puffed up at my praise of Hogwarts as though he had some proprietary claim to the institution.

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, and continued before he could get too full of himself for being a British magical citizen.  “I did consider Durmstrang, which was established only a little over a century after Hogwarts,” I commented, containing a smile at the vaguely horrified look on the little Light wizard’s face.  It was rather hilarious, actually.  I could only imagine what he’d think if he knew I was a Parselmouth.

“Durmstrang!  Why’d you wanna go there?  Only Dark wizards go to Durmstrang!”

I lifted an eyebrow at the living stereotype that had clearly mistaken me for a Light wizard.  Closing my book gently, I gave him a cool smile and rose gracefully from my seat.  “Excuse me,” I said neutrally, then left the compartment before he could ask where I was going or if I was coming back.

I wasn’t greatly pleased with the idea of being chased out of my own compartment, but I had the feeling that nothing short of blatant cruelty was going to make a dent in Ronald Weasley’s naivety.  I preferred to wait to make enemies until after I’d been Sorted at least, so this was definitely the more prudent choice.

* * *

 _“My, my, those are impressive occlumency shields for an eleven-year-old,”_ was the Sorting Hat’s first comment when it settled upon my head.

I withheld a reply.  I’d been learning occlumency from my earliest memories and Mum would not have let me anywhere near Hogwarts if I hadn’t mastered it.  I knew that the Hat didn’t require full access to a mind in order to Sort.  We’d found reference to that in the Library.  Again, my attendance had been contingent upon that fact.

“ _Hm.  Well, no matter.  There’s no doubt that you belong in,_ SLYTHERIN!”  The last bit was shouted for the entire Hall to hear and I was in no way surprised.  I was too ambitious for Ravenclaw, too cunning for Gryffindor, and too ruthless for Hufflepuff.  And I was a parselmouth, but I didn’t actually know if the Hat could tell that or if it would matter if it could.

Removing the Hat from my head, I transferred it back to McGonagall, then smoothly made my way down to the Slytherin table.  A quick survey of those surrounding me identified the Malfoy heir, Draco, the second Nott son, Theodore, the elder Greengrass daughter, Daphne, the youngest Parkinson, Pansy, and the middle Bulstrode child, Millicent.  It took me a few seconds longer to identify the sole progeny of the lesser Crabbe and Goyle families, Vincent and Gregory if I remembered correctly, and the last girl I didn’t know.  A halfblood, probably, or a foreigner.  Her unusual beige eye color suggested a touch of creature blood, so I doubted she was one of the rare muggleborns that got sorted into Slytherin.

The Sorting concluded shortly thereafter with the lone Zabini child, Blaise, joining us.  Weasley, not surprisingly, had gone to Gryffindor.

Dumbledore’s opening nonsense words did much to reinforce what Mum had told me about the old man.  “Mad drunk on his own overinflated image” was the most succinct estimation.  The mad part was evident in the first words I ever heard him speak.

Introductions circled the collection of Slytherin first years while we served ourselves from the available dishes.  The unknown girl did turn out to be a halfblood named Tracey Davis.  She seemed familiar with the other purebloods.

“And you.  Smith?” Malfoy posed arrogantly.

I forced myself to not roll my eyes at his tone.  “Hadrian Smith,” I clarified with a smile that didn’t reach my eyes.  “Halfblood.  From America, obviously.”

I was then forced to go through the explanation of just why I wasn’t attending Salem Institute, which I did briefly.  Like Ron, most of these people also felt that being British citizens attending Hogwarts, they were allowed to make some claim on the school, for most of them looked rather smug that I’d chosen the school.  Blaise didn’t seem affected by it and Daphne actually looked slightly annoyed, though she was discrete about it and made no comment.  Theodore, who’d given us a blanket permission to call him Theo, as apparently, everyone did so, just looked terribly bored with the conversation and mostly focused on his food.

When the meal concluded, Dumbledore stood again.  I listened curiously to his speech, slightly alarmed by the fact that wandering down a certain third floor corridor could apparently be deadly.  I hoped Mum didn’t hear about that.  She’d probably pull me out of the school instantly.

Then Dumbledore went on as though he’d not said anything alarming, “And finally, before we retire for the evening, I’d like to observe a moment of silence for Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, who should have been here with us today.”

I kept my face blank as I observed the reaction to Dumbledore’s words.  Severus Snape, Mum’s old friend, who I recognized from seeing his picture in Potions Journals, was glaring darkly at his plate.  Most of the Hall seemed melancholy at his words, looking down to observe the moment of silence.  Several of the Slytherins rolled their eyes and Malfoy was sneering is apparent disgust.  Unequivocally, Slytherin House rebelled against the entire concept by keeping their heads firmly raised.  I followed their example to avoid standing out, though I did note the way Dumbledore’s eyes traveled over the hall as though he was curious about people’s reactions as well.  When his eyes swept in my direction, I checked that my expression was as bored as possible and focused my eyes toward a random spot on the wall above him.

Finally, Dumbledore spoke again.  “Harry Potter, our hearts go with you, wherever you are.  May you be returned to us safely.”

I kept my face blank despite the urge to snort.  The old man was the reason we’d run, after all.

The walk down to the Slytherin common room after the feast was uneventful.  I did not pay much attention to the quiet conversation around me, focusing instead on creating a mental map of the school as I went.  This was one of the things Mum had drilled into me.  Getting lost was dangerous and therefore I must not do it at any time.  She had a habit of giving me pop quizzes whenever we went somewhere new, which had made the habit instinctive now.  It was never pleasant when I failed one of those quizzes.

The entrance to the common room was concealed behind a blank, unremarkable stretch of wall, I was pleased to find.  The concealment suited my inbred paranoia nicely.  The prefect leading us cautioned that we should stick to an older student until we could remember the exact placement of the door and that Professor Snape would give detentions to anyone wandering around shouting the password at random stretches of dungeon wall.  The password was Magic Is Might, a popular pureblood slogan in Europe particularly.

* * *

Slytherin House certainly was interesting.  I learned that the Malfoy heir wasn’t unintelligent, but spoiled perhaps beyond all redemption.  He was convinced that he was better than absolutely everyone except his own parents and he treated everyone like servants or vassals.  I avoided him as much as possible and kept my opinions vague when they were solicited.

The girl I hadn’t recognized was Tracey Davis, halfblood daughter of Demarine Selwyn.  Her muggleborn father was dead and she was acquainted with and accepted by most of the pureblooded Slytherins in our year.  No one mentioned how her father died, but it was suggested that Tracey’s mother may have had something to do with it.  Tracey herself didn’t seem to have any concern for the topic of her father.

Daphne was a smart girl, but with much emphasis on the “girl” part of that.  She spent most of her time with Tracey doing… girl things.  Millicent was extremely shy, but tended to hang around on the fringes of whatever Daphne was doing in a way that suggested Daphne was a familiar and safe presence in her life.  Indeed, though Daphne usually ignored her, she never tried to dislodge her or mock her either, the way Pansy would at every opportunity.

Blaise and Theo seemed to have been acquaintances prior to Hogwarts, but it was very quickly obvious that they were destined for a close friendship as they took to spending all their time together.  Both were intelligent and quiet, so it wasn’t surprising they fit so well.

Crabbe and Goyle lingered consistently around Draco.  Neither of them were exceptionally bright and they seemed to have been comfortable acting as his vassals long before reaching Hogwarts.  Personally, I didn’t think they made Draco look very impressive.  We were wizards, after all.  We were supposed to value intellect and magical might, not physical brawn, which was the only marginally impressive attribute of those two brutes.

For myself, I mostly kept myself apart from the others.  Getting close to others was dangerous.  You start to trust them.  You let down your guard.  You give up secrets you shouldn’t.  You turn your back to them.  Some of them may very well be harmless, but it takes only one tiny miscalculation to end your life.  It was one of the first lessons I remembered learning.  Friends were an illusion.  You could never know for certain if someone was truly loyal to you or merely pretending.  Even those who were loyal could make mistakes.  Make yourself vulnerable to someone, and their mistakes could end your life.

No friends.

Acquaintances were okay.  Allies could be useful.  Just don’t get too close.

I knew Theo and Blaise the best because I found their personalities the most tolerable.  I didn’t try to insert myself as a third part of their budding friendship, however.

The classes, I found, were a waste of time.  Most of the material I’d learned by the time I was six.  Some of it was wrong or misleading to what I knew to be the truth from my studies at the Library.  Not that it was their fault.  They hadn’t the resources of the world’s most complete magical library from which to draw up their lesson plans.  Of course, there was a very good reason that the Library was a secret.  There was a reason that every other public library had been redacted so many times.

Politics.

I quite loathed that subject.

The teachers themselves were of little interest.  Flitwick was a legendary dueler, but I knew from my research, mum’s experiences, and what I could judge of him myself, that he was an exhibitionist.  Not a fighter.  I wouldn’t pick a fight with him if I could avoid it, of course, but neither did I expect he’d ever pick a fight with anyone if he had the option of running away or negotiating.  How boring.

McGonagall was Dumbledore’s faithful hound.  According to mum’s estimation, she wasn’t as heartless as Dumbledore, but she was so completely malleable to his whims that there was little difference between his wishes and her actions.  She was a stern but competent teacher that I would do my best to avoid angering.

Severus Snape was the most interesting.  Mum had mixed feelings about her old friend with some of the choices he’d made in his life, but she was still fond of him.  That was easy to tell when she spoke of him.  She also respected him for his intelligence and accomplishments.  She did not, of course, trust him, and had made that extremely clear to me before allowing me to come to Hogwarts.  She didn’t know if he belonged to Voldemort or Dumbledore these days, but she suspected it may well be both.  She knew he’d been marked, that he’d not wanted her to die, and that Dumbledore had spoken for him to keep him out of Azkaban after Voldemort’s death.

Well, it wasn’t surprising that she didn’t trust him.  She didn’t trust anyone.

Regardless of Mum’s opinion though, I liked Snape.  He didn’t take shite from anyone, he did his part to reduce the oversized egos of the Gryffindors, and he had a lethal sense of humor.  Mum had been teaching me to brew potions for years, so I had no difficulties in his class, meaning that I was lucky enough to avoid being on the bad side of his temper.  Of course, being Slytherin helped, certainly.

Oh, and then there was Professor Quirrell.  I was ninety-nine percent convinced that Quirrell was possessed, though by whom or what, I had no idea.  From what I could sense of his magic, he had two magical cores.  And over time, I one of those cores seemed to be degrading the other like a parasite.

Thus far, I’d been spending most of my considerable free time researching Quirrell’s condition and trying to figure out exactly what was going on.  Admittedly, the drive was probably one part curiosity and two parts boredom, but it was better than socializing with these pampered brats daring to think themselves my peers.  Listening to them bitching and moaning about homework and detention was enough to make me laugh.  They’d never have survived my mother.

* * *

 

****1988****

“Up!  Get up, Boy!”

I groaned as I felt a stinging hex slam into my unprotected back.  My ankle was broken, I was sure of it.

“Do you think anyone’s going to let you lie around and lick your wounds in the real world?!” Mum barked sharply, sending another painful stinging hex that hit my left shoulder.  “I could have killed you a dozen times by now!  Get up and fight or lie down and die!  CHOOSE!”

With a quiet whimper of pain, I forced myself to roll away from the next hex she sent at me.  My ankle screamed with pain, but I knew better than to give into it when my vision darkened.  Pushing through the pain, I launched myself behind a tree and cast a quick splinting charm on my ankle, then a numbing charm because I knew it was the only way I’d be able to continue fighting.

A blasting curse slammed into the tree providing my cover and I dove away from the flying splinters, lifting my wand to cast a shield.  Another spell, some kind of bludgeoning curse pounded into the shield, but it held long enough for me to regain my feet and deflect the next spell.  I tried to stay moving, as I’d been taught, but my ankle was weak, even with the splint and I knew it would give out if I wasn’t careful.

Mum was too fast, her spells too powerful.  Without being able to move, I didn’t stand a chance.  A few seconds later, her bludgeoning spell slammed into my hip and blasted me right off the ground.  All I processed was flying through the air and pain and then an impact before everything went dark.

* * *

 

****1991****

It was difficult to hold any respect at all for kids too lazy to read a book or write an essay.  Or when they moaned in "agony" at the pain in their hands and wrists after spending a detention writing lines.

The first two months of school went pretty smoothly, all things considered.  I kept my head down and was ignored by the majority of the school.  Hermione Granger from Gryffindor didn’t like me much because what she was killing herself to manage, I was doing better without trying.  Idiot girl didn’t realize that it wasn’t that I was inherently leagues better than her.  I’d just been learning magic my entire life whereas she’d literally just started.  Not that I was going to go out of my way to disabuse her of her assumptions.  When it came to naivety, she was even worse than many others, and I hadn’t the patience to deal with that.

It’s difficult to explain exactly what went through my mind that Halloween.  I’d never much cared for Granger, but when I realized that she was alone in the school with no clue that a troll was on the loose… all I could think was that she was just a kid.  A helpless little kid.  She wouldn’t stand any chance against a troll, and it hardly seemed like she should die for being a normal kid instead of a freak like me.

I’d like to say that I weighed the pros and cons and thought about what mum would want me to do and then made an informed decision.  Truth is, I reacted emotionally. 

Slipping away from the other Slytherins was extremely simple.  I didn’t talk to anyone too much and certainly wasn’t close to anyone, so no one paid me that much attention most of the time.  Finding my way to the bathroom that I’d heard the Gryffindor girls mention when they’d been making fun of the uptight little witch was easy as well.  I hadn’t quite been expecting the troll to beat me there, however.

Once again, I ignored prudence and the knowledge that my mother would definitely say I shouldn’t get involved.  Granger was screaming inside the bathroom with the troll, and I knew it wouldn’t be that difficult to kill the thing if I was careful.  Trolls were tough and their hide was magically resistant, but they were also incredibly stupid.  They were just smart enough to ignore inbred instincts that would make even animals superior, but not smart enough to quickly reason through a situation that made other sentient beings vastly superior.

So, the key to taking down a troll was to hit it hard enough to overcome the magical resistance and preferably from a great enough distance that it couldn’t hit back if you didn’t get it on the first try.  Lacking the possibility for distance, a distraction worked pretty well.  I knew all of this in theory only, of course.  Mum never would have let me fight an actual troll.  Not yet, at least.

Most eleven-year-olds wouldn’t have the raw power to hit a troll hard enough to effect it.  Of course, I wasn’t most eleven-year-olds.  I was very innately powerful, but even more, I’d been training my magic for as long as I could remember.  That training strengthened my magic and allowed it to mature more quickly.

The troll was already pretty distracted with trying to squish Granger, who was impressively quick despite what I assumed was utter terror at what was likely her first near-death experience, so I was able to come close enough to be sure that my first hit would be the only one needed.  I drew heavily on my magic and focused it into one incredibly powerful slicing hex.  It didn’t quite take the troll’s head from its shoulders, but it did make it a close relative of Nearly-Headless Nick.

Granger screamed as the body collapsed to the floor, but she was alive and didn’t look to have been harmed beyond the odd scratch here and there probably caused by the flying debris when the troll demolished the wooden stalls.  Presently, she was staring at me with very wide eyes.  She flinched when the corpse twitched and then hurried very quickly around the far wall of the room to get to the door without getting any closer to the troll than was absolutely necessary.  When she finally reached me just outside the door, she wrapped me in a bear hug.

I staggered to keep my balance and wished that I knew how to handle this situation as easily as I’d been able to deal with the troll.

Thankfully, I was saved from the situation when Granger suddenly slumped and became dead weight in my arms.  Surprised that she’d apparently fainted now rather than during the fight, I lowered her to the floor and leaned her against the wall.  Before I could even let go of her, a scathing voice intruded from behind me.

I spun quickly, shocked that anyone had managed to sneak up on me.

“What the bloody, fucking hell did you think you’re doing, boy?!”

The word “boy” in combination with the look in her brown eyes assured me that this was not Sonya Selner, first year Hufflepuff muggleborn.  This was my mother in disguise.  I was somehow less than totally surprised that she had, in fact, been spying on me these last two months.  I also suspected that Granger hadn’t actually fainted.

“Have I taught you nothing at all?  I’ve been teaching you to _defend yourself_ , not to go risking your neck in some impulsive gambit to protect every wayward waif in your path!”

“She’s just a kid!” I tried to protest.

“She is not your responsibility!” Lily, in the guise of a cherubic, pig-tailed eleven-year-old, nevertheless managed to snarl with all her typical rancor.  “None of these kids are!  Your only responsibility is to protect yourself and going _toward_ the danger is the exact opposite of that.”

“But, mum, I handled it fine…”

“Do not justify your recklessness with good fortune!  There are a thousand ways this could have gone very, very badly.  The fact that it went one of the few possible good ways does not in any way negate your stupidity!  Now, go and pack your things.  We’re leaving tonight!”

My stomach fell into my shoes and I cursed myself for acting without thinking it through.  Of course mum would react this way.  I should have known that.  Though, honestly, I had my doubts as to whether she’d have reacted the same regardless of my personal response.  The very fact that there was a troll in the school would probably be enough to set her off no matter how far from me it may have been.  “Mum…” I tried to reason.

“No arguments, boy!  You’re clearly not responsible enough to handle being away from me for extended periods of time and Dumbledore _definitely_ isn’t responsible enough to be counted upon to keep your environment safe.  We are leaving in twenty minutes with or without your things.”

With a despondent sigh, I nodded and turned toward the Slytherin dorms.  As I was leaving the corridor, I noticed a distraction ward had been set up around the area, doubtless to ensure no teachers happened upon our little discussion.

Two months, I’d managed.  I tried to focus on everything around me on the walk down to the dungeons.  I tried to memorize everything, strongly aware of the fact that I may never see Hogwarts again.  By tomorrow, we’d be in a different country with different identities.  I didn’t even want to think about how long it was going to take to convince her to let me attend school again, but I somehow doubted she’d let me back here while Dumbledore was yet in charge.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so for the next chapter, I'm dithering between just skipping straight to the summer he turns seventeen or writing an intermediary chapter somewhat like chapter 3 of "Beyond the Breaking Point", in which we'd quickly go through what happens in the intervening years. If you have a preference, let me know.


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